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UN Women: Chief, Economic Empowerment Section

New York City

  • Organization: UNWOMEN - United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
  • Location: New York City
  • Grade: Senior Executive level - D-1, Director - Internationally recruited position
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Economics
    • Women's Empowerment and Gender Mainstreaming
    • Malaria, Tuberculosis and other infectious diseases
    • Managerial positions
  • Closing Date: Closed

Background

Note: The duty station for the post will be determined at a later stage. 

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

UN Women’s Policy, Programme and Intergovernmental Division (PPID) provides global support to UN Women offices at Headquarters and in all field locations to deliver results in support of UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2018-2021 and internationally agreed goals on gender equality and women’s empowerment, including the Beijing Platform for Action and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Division provides intellectual and strategic leadership on normative support and the delivery of integrated policy and program advice, including through policy analysis and gender mainstreaming. The Division leverages innovation, knowledge management and cutting-edge technical expertise to support UN Women programmes and to build the capacity of partners to deliver results on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

UN Women’s Strategic Plan addresses women’s economic empowerment as one of its key outcomes – women have income security, decent work and economic autonomy – with work in three main areas:  more policies promote decent work and social protection for women; more women own, launch and/or manage small, medium and large enterprises; and more rural women secure access to productive resources and engage in sustainable agriculture. To this end, the Economic Empowerment section pursues flagship programme initiatives on income security through decent work and social protection, stimulating women’s entrepreneurship and gender-responsive procurement, climate-resilient agriculture and sustainable energy, as well as a global programme on making migration safe for women.  It is also leading on joint programmes with ILO on women’s decent employment through investments in the care economy; with FAO, IFAD and WFP on rural women’s economic empowerment; and with UNIDO on economic empowerment of women in green industry. 

The Chief of the Economic Empowerment section reports to the PPID Director and is responsible for leading the organization’s work on women’s economic empowerment, providing global policy support and developing thematic work and knowledge production in line with the mandate to further women’s income security, decent work, and economic autonomy. The incumbent is responsible for developing, maintaining and expanding partnerships, developing and supporting high-level advocacy initiatives and managing the Economic Empowerment section.  

Duties and Responsibilities

Lead UN Women’s economic empowerment strategy:

  • Build a comprehensive economic empowerment strategy for UN Women that reflects evidence-based policy approaches, taking advantage of the entity’s current strengths, demonstrated niche and triple mandate to position it as an influential and relevant actor on women’s economic empowerment in the context of UN Women’s Strategy (current and future) and the gender-responsive implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;
  • Convene leading feminist economists and development policy specialists and practitioners on gender equality and women’s economic empowerment to advise on and guide UN Women’s economic empowerment strategy;
  • Act as a thought leader for the section, and provide strategic advice to the PPID Director and leadership team and the rest of the organization on women’s economic empowerment;
  • Operationalize economic empowerment strategy drawing on expertise and experience from across UN Women.

Guide development and implementation of policy and programmatic initiatives:

  • Oversee design and implementation of flagship programme initiatives and other global programmes, in close coordination with regional and country teams and external partners;
  • Introduce innovative and cutting-edge approaches, drawing on feminist economic policy and practice, to enhance UN Women’s global policy support and programmatic work;
  • Spearhead the development, testing and roll out of tools and methodologies in the area of women’s economic empowerment to provide standards and guidelines, based on a gender-responsive and human rights-based approaches, for policy-making and programming, and ensure lessons learned are incorporated;
  • Lead and implement a policy research and practice agenda reflecting the linkages between global normative commitments on women’s economic empowerment and their implementation at global, regional and national levels.

Oversee knowledge production and management:

  • Lead production of peer-reviewed discussion papers and policy briefs on women’s economic empowerment to form part of UN Women’s series;
  • Provide substantive contributions to processes and publications undertaken by UN system and external partners;
  • Determine and implement a mechanism to equip UN Women with the capacity to drive a vibrant global matrix of learning on women’s economic empowerment;
  • Oversee and facilitate internal and external communities of practice on women’s economic empowerment;
  • Contribute to the development and maintenance of global and regional knowledge networks, activities and practice.

Provide substantive advice and support to intergovernmental processes and events and other key global initiatives:

  • Provide substantive contributions to intergovernmental fora to help shape development of global and regional policies, norms, standards and implementation strategies;
  • Produce reports and background papers on matters related to gender equality and economic empowerment in accordance with mandates given by relevant intergovernmental bodies and report on progress and challenges on critical and emerging issues;
  • Provide technical and advisory support on gender equality issues to intergovernmental bodies, preparing summaries of debates, supporting negotiations and analyzing outcomes;
  • Provide leadership and support to the Generation Equality Forum Action Coalitions on Economic Justice and Rights and Feminist Action for Climate Justice.

Strengthen and expand partnerships and advocacy initiatives:

  • Identify, develop and manage the diverse range of partnerships that UN Women needs to support its work on women’s economic empowerment, including for resource mobilization, in close coordination with the Strategic Partnerships Division;
  • Represent UN Women in international fora to encourage greater commitment to and collaboration on the realization of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment policies;
  • Convene or represent UN Women in UN inter-agency working groups and other high level academic and policy conferences and events to participate in strategic discussions and establish cooperation/collaboration;
  • Develop and maintain relationships with academia, research and training institutes (including the UN Women Training Center), civil society and thematic technical experts, and the International Association for Feminist Economics to gain and share knowledge, exchange views on current issues/trends and to incorporate cutting-edge thinking on gender equality and women’s economic empowerment.

Manage the Economic Empowerment section:

  • Finalize and oversee the implementation of the annual workplans and annual reports for the section;
  • Promote teamwork and establish a respectful and collaborative working environment that is conducive to delivery of quality results;
  • Supervise, guide and oversee the work the work of the team to ensure the delivery of quality results according to standards and goals established in the section and PPID;
  • Manage the performance of staff and ensure compliance to the performance management process;
  • Manage and monitor financial resources and take responsibility for the integrity of financial systems and consistent application of the internal control framework and/or UN Women/UN rules and regulations. Submit timely mandated reports;
  • Oversee the development and implementation of strategic evaluation plans, ensure that management responses to all evaluations are completed and followed up, and that learning from evaluations is fed back into UN Women initiatives and operations;
  • Oversee security requirements for the team.

Key Performance Indicators:

The Chief has a significant impact on whether efforts to implement UN Women’s Strategic Plan and achieve results in the area of women’s economic empowerment are successful, and whether UN Women’s policy advice and technical assistance to the UN system, governments, civil society, and other stakeholders, as well as to relevant global normative and policy frameworks and their operationalization, are effective and make a difference for gender equality and women’s economic empowerment.

Key Performance Indicators include:

  • Timely and quality strategic advice to PPID Director and leadership team, ELT and the rest of the organization;
  • Delivery of flagship and global programmes and timely and quality donor reports;
  • Quality contributions to intergovernmental fora to help shape global and regional policies, norms, standards and implementation strategies; timely and quality production of SG reports and other normative and policy materials;
  • Quality and timeliness of substantive policy guidance and knowledge products;
  • Delivery of Action Coalition partnerships on economic justice and climate justice;
  • Engagement and building relationships with key partners;
  • Effective resource mobilization efforts;
  • Elaborating and implementing annual work plans and contributing to next strategic plan;
  • Performance management, support and development of staff and enabling work environment.

Competencies

Core values:

  • Integrity;
  • Professionalism;
  • Respect for Diversity.

Core Competencies:

  • Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
  • Accountability;
  • Creative Problem Solving;
  • Effective Communication;
  • Inclusive Collaboration;
  • Stakeholder Engagement;
  • Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Values and Competencies Framework: https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf?la=en&vs=637

Functional Competencies:

  • Excellent substantive knowledge of current thinking, policies and practices in feminist economics and women’s economic empowerment, including (preferably) a record of peer-reviewed publications;
  • Proven ability to develop and implement large-scale policy and programmatic initiatives on women’s economic empowerment;  
  • Strong leadership and proven team-building and people management skills; ability to create a productive, respectful and collaborative work environment;
  • Ability to conceptualize and convey strategic vision from the spectrum of development experience;
  • Effectiveness in establishing and fostering good relations with government counterparts, UN agencies, donors, and NGO partners;
  • Strong written and oral communication skills, with proven expertise in writing cogent and convincing policy materials and communicating with diverse audiences;
  • Proven analytical and problem-solving skills;
  • Excellent strategic planning, goal-setting and prioritization skills;
  • Strong, proven commitment to gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Master’s degree (or equivalent) in economics, with preferred specialization in feminist economics, or related fields such as gender and development, public policy, or other social science fields with a significant focus on gender equality; PhD desirable.
  • A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

  • Minimum of 15 years of progressively responsible experience in policy and programmatic work in gender and development, feminist economics, women’s economic empowerment or related areas;
  • Substantial experience in preparing and publishing policy pieces on feminist economics and women’s economic empowerment;
  • Significant experience in designing and implementing large-scale operational programmes on women’s economic empowerment;
  • Demonstrated experience in successfully managing teams in a collaborative and transparent manner;
  • Field experience in developing countries is an advantage;
  • Recognition as an authority on women’s economic empowerment is desirable.

Languages:

  • Fluency in English is required;
  • Knowledge of one or more of the other UN official working languages is very desirable.

Application:

All applications must include (as an attachment) the completed UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-p11-personal-history-form.doc?la=en&vs=558. Kindly note that the system will only allow one attachment. Applications without the completed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

Note:

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.

 

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UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
This vacancy is now closed.
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